


The Lighthouse on Eilean Mòr

by MrRogers



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Flannan Islands AU, M/M, Scottish Gaelic AU, history au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2346713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrRogers/pseuds/MrRogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1900. Marco is a young lighthouse operator from Carloway on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. Jean is the captain of a steamboat that brings supplies to the island. A historical, Scottish Gaelic!AU written based on an ask prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lighthouse on Eilean Mòr

October 31st, 1900

 

Saw the fucker again, yesterday. Said he'd been cruising the Hebrides and he checked up on my màthair like I'd asked him to. As always, he made it sound as if it had been part of the route – and as always, I knew that the ship from Carndonagh to Oban didn't even sail close to the Hebrides.

It baffled me at first, like it often did. Weeks away from him often made me forget why this man, unrelated to me by blood, changed the direction of his steamship's course and lost three days worth of pay just for the sake of making sure my màthair's ill-health and rheumatism had not gotten worse.

But as soon as the foghorn atop his ship's bridge tooted across the waves and our lighthouse flashed three times in response, I remembered exactly why.

 

He always arrived with a grin on his face. Two missing teeth – a molar and his left canine – resulted in a toothy smile reminiscent of what wee bairns flashed at you on their way back from the primary school in Linaclate.

" _Ciamar a tha thu?_ " he always said to the boys and I as we ran down the rocks to the ship in our oilskins and wellingtons, the little pools of brine revealed by the low tide splashing beneath our heavy feet.

"Feckin' Irish bawbag thinkin' he's funny fer learnin' Gàidhlig," Seumas always cursed at him, wearing the same grumpy expression he never ceased displaying (unless he had been visiting his wife in Stornoway in the past three days).

And the four of us would engage in idle banter – him and I always sneaking excited glances at each other – and heaving the crates of tinned meat, eggs, potatoes, honey, dried tea, flares, and acytylene gas up the steep, slippery steps that had been carved into the sheer cliff face a few years ago, when the lighthouse was built.

One of my favourite things about him were the changes. When Seumas and Dòmhnall were around with us, he talked of every "rìbhinn bhan" he had seen during the past few weeks of his voyages, the bosoms of barmaidens, the flavour of the whisky and the rising prices of coal for his ship. But in the evenings, when we draped ourselves in thick, wool sweaters and oilskins and went out of the lighthouse for a walk, sharing a pipe between just the two of us, Jean talked about different things.

With a flushed face – due to the bitter winds biting into the delicate flesh of his cheeks, reddening them – I listened to stories which ranged from descriptions of Jean's favourite games when he was just a bairn in Donegal, playing in the peaty bogs of Barnesmore with his friends, chucking muck at one another; to stories about the time Jean's eldest sister had been nearly stragled to death by her first husband and my friendly sailor – who had been barely sixteen at the time – killed the man as revenge for mistreating his sister Marie; to stories about how sometimes, while crossing the seas, Jean would play the tin flute while looking out at the sun setting over tidal waves, and the view would strike him right at the heart and make him tear up; or stories about how giving a sack of tatties to a starving gypsy girl made him feel warmer in the heart and stomach than having a pint at the boozer.

And I would be a liar if I told you I didn't love that Jean. I loved the Jean who knew my homesickness for the Isle of Lewis and my home in Carloway, the Jean who had learned Gàidhlig for the sake of making me feel like I was back home, the Jean who insisted – in spite of his absolute pride for his half-French, half-Irish heritage – that I call him Iain, because it was a name I grew up hearing.

Every time he visited the Flannan Isles, we seemed to do the same things – feast, drink, smoke and talk. And yet every visit felt different in a sense. And I suppose there is always something new that Jean and I do which we had never done before. Three weeks ago, when I told him the tale of my younger bràthair's death, a story which makes me shaky and uneasy until this very day, Jean held my hand. There wasn't a single twitch in the man's amber-coloured eyes as he did so. One second, I was sitting on the freshly-enameled wooden bench in front of the lighthouse, trembling after remembering the tale of when Aodhan's head had been ripped from his body and flattened by the wheat press, and the next second I felt warmth coursing through my veins as the sailor's rough fingers clasped around my bulky hands.

This time, yesterday that is, Jean embraced me.

It was a strange sensation, as the last time I had been embraced was by my sister Anna, four years ago, when I watched her walk down the aisle with Ruaridh, my childhood friend from Carloway. They moved to Inverness shortly afterwards, and still often sent me mail. Their second child had been born two months ago.

And yet all I felt in that moment was the heat of his body. His shorter, but stockier frame wrapped itself around me and instinctively my forehead leaned down to rest on his shoulder.

The smell around me was musky and damp, slightly sweaty, as well as salty and sharp – it was a sailor's shoulder I was leaning on, after all. And yet, indescribably so, Jean's shoulder smelled like home. Although the scent was nothing like the spice rack and drying herbs of màthair's kitchen in Carloway, nor the burning of peat in the furnace, nor was it even similar to the aroma of pinewood benches of the church in Calanais.

It was just Jean. _Jean was home._

The embrace lasted at least a minute. I expected it to be a quick display of affection and consolation, but my friend had not pulled away, and I certainly wasn't going to do it.

In fact, it may well have lasted for an hour if the two of us didn't hear the lighthouse door opening, with Seumas taking out the "pish-bucket", his preferred name for our chamber pot, out to the sea. It was best to break apart and avoid answering all the questions which would follow from Seumas, no doubt – questions that I, myself, didn't know the answer to.

Because, in truth, why were we embracing like a courting young couple? Why were we showing each other affection reserved for the newly-engaged? What... what is there between me and Jean?

I'd say I love him like a brother, save for the fact that holding my brother's hand had never caused my cheeks to turn pink and my heartbeat to soar like a seagull in the wind.

I shall never know, I suppose.

 

* * *

 

 

November 27 th , 1900

 

Saw the fucker again, yesterday.

 

He said màthair's arthritis had gotten worse, but Cairistìona was taking good care of her, preparing her a special mint paste to put on her back, knees and elbows.

He also said that Màthair laughed and joked that I should "find myself a wife who would look after me and love me half as much as Jean does, and I would be the happiest man in the world".

I'm not too sure that she's right. Especially after what happened yesterday.

Jean's visit this month had gone the way they always had before, with much merriment and good times shared between all of us. The first two nights we all drank whisky, sang folk tunes (including Jean's favourite, "Rocky Road to Dublin", and my personal favourite, "Hi horo 's na horo eile", which my athair taught me when he was still alive), smoked and joked – all the while leaving time for me and Jean to go out for evening walks together.

On the third night of his stay, however, Jean and I went out fishing to one of the southern eileans, taking some bread and whisky onto the row boat with us. We were successful in our catches and even caught a fat tuna at one point – but the winds blew strongly that day and a storm brewed up faster than the two of us realized, since we were both engaged in our conversations as always.

The waves picked up so quickly there was absolutely no chance for the two of us to swim back to the lighthouse – all we managed to do was pull the old row boat higher up ashore so that it wouldn't be swept away completely by the giant tides. Thunder crashed over us and Jean began panicking, the torrential rain drowning out his shouts.

Fortunately I had remembered correctly and there was a bothy on the eilean – the lighthouse builders weren't allowed to drink on-site, so they rowed onto the island every night to drink whisky, far away from the prying eyes of their work supervisor.

The cottage was built of stone, mud and peat in the same style our ancestors built their homes in, making it very weather-resistant. The two of us were still shuddering and our teeth chattered in our mouths as I struggled to find the trap-door in the floor which lead to a small, dry storage space for peat. There was just about enough to light a small fire in the corner of the bothy and help us warm up and wait for the storm to pass.

Passing the bottle of whisky between us, the firewater soon ran out and we sat by the miserably small fire, rubbing our arms, legs and feet, trying to keep warm. In fact, as we found out soon thereafter, removing our wet clothes kept us warmer than wearing our cold, soaked rags.

And that was the night I made love with Jean.

These personal letters already contain material vile enough for me to be condemned by everyone I know, which is why I will spare you the description of what the two of us did that night. But adultery was committed, that much was certain – and I finally understood the appeal of not living in celibacy, something I had been completely unable to understand previously.

Even after the deed had been committed, Jean lay on top of me, his muscular, weathered, and understandably tired body lying stark naked against mine, the two of us conserving warmth and enjoying every moment we had left together. I knew that tomorrow in the morning, the storm would have blown over, and the two of us would have to return to the lighthouse on Eilean-Mòr, Jean slowly setting out to sea on his steamboat again.

As I had written before, I've never been sure about what was between me and Jean.

But _he said it_.

Jean had been lying with his ear on my chest, listening to my steady heartbeat, but then tilted his head so that it was straight up, his chin resting on my ribcage. "Tha gaol agam ort," he said in his nearly-perfect Gàidhlig accent.

"Tha gràdh mór agam ort-fhèin, Iain _,"_ I replied, my hand slowly sweeping through the rich mane of light-coloured hair at the top of his head.

I knew that this happiness was too extreme to last. And even then I could hear the wind's howls dying down and the patter of rain against the roof dying down. But as we had to remove our bodies from atop each other; as we rowed back to the lighthouse; as we had to share a painfully quick embrace and two manly pats-on-the-back as our farewells, instead of the dozens of kisses we would've preferred, no doubt; and even as I had to yell, "See you in a month, fucker!" in a faltering voice, waving at the steamship as it left for Carndonagh; even then, there was something that always gave me hope.

I would see Jean again.

And that was enough.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Captain Jim Harvie, December 26 th , 1900 _

 

_This is Captain Jim Harvie, Captain of the relief boat headed for the Flannan Lighthouse after it had been inoperational since at least December 15 th , 1900. _

_I am writing to notify William Murdoch, Secretary of the Northern Lighthouse Board Office that a dreadful accident has happened at Flannans. The three keepers: Marco, Seumas and Dòmhnall had disappeared from the island. On our arrival there this afternoon no sign of life was to be seen on the island._

 

( _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannan_Isles#Mystery_of_1900_ )

 

 


End file.
